Divisive SegWit2x Bitcoin Fork Cancelled Due to Lack of Social Consensus

For about three years, the Bitcoin community has been embroiled in unceasing debates on the best approach to scale the Bitcoin network for wider use and adoption. Since Bitcoin is a decentralized effort of software development lacking any top-down hierarchy to greenlight proposals and implementations, achieving consensus with the community is difficult.

Software forks occur when the source code of a project is copied, a change is implemented in the software, and the subsequent events follow the new rules.

Several groups have emerged with different views on how to upgrade the Bitcoin protocol. One of these proposals is SegWit2x.

While there have been other forks off of Bitcoin, such as Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, those blockchains were relatively harmless since they did not have a direct impact on the user experience, specifically the security of their transactions. SegWit2x could have resulted in users accidently transacting to the wrong chain (lack of replay protection) and experiencing loss of funds.

On Wednesday Nov. 8 16:58:41 UTC, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe sent an email to the SegWit2x mailing list signed by companies who collectively supported and announced the endeavor at Consensus 2017, explaining their reasons for withdrawing support.

Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x.

BTC1 (SegWit2x) developer Jeff Garzik stated in the Slack group that the software will still be developed and that it could support other Bitcoin-based chains.

This marks a significant moment in the tense discourse around the future of Bitcoin.

POPULAR CATEGORY

Tokenverse's mission is to bring people closer to the future that is already here with a media network that explores these emerging technologies. Blockchain. Artificial intelligence. Virtuality. Space exploration. Autonomous transport. Sustainability. These will undoubtedly shape the course of humanity and we want to provide people clarity and understanding along the way.